This invention relates to a ballistic shield of the type that is carried by is enforcement or tactical operators in situations involving the threat of handgun and/or rifle assaults.
This type of shield is manufactured from multiple plies of ballistic resistant material that are permanently compressed together in a process employing heat and pressure. Pressing the multiple layers of ballistic resistant material into one panel provides the shield its ballistic resistant capabilities, defeating handgun and/or rifle threats.
Users of these ballistic shields often need to be able to see from behind the protection of the shield during missions. However, the compressed ballistic material that forms the panel is opaque. Therefore, many ballistic shields are designed to include transparent viewports. A viewport, also known as a lens, is a piece of transparent ballistic resistant material (often ballistic resistant glass, polycarbonate, hardcoat or acrylic) that is secured into the ballistic material panel, enabling the operator to see through the shield without being further exposed to the ballistic threat.
There are several known techniques for securing the viewport to the ballistic material panel of the shield. The most common method involves cutting an opening in the desired shape of the viewport, through the material of the panel. The viewport is then placed into the opening and clamped to the panel via a lens cap or bezel extending around the edge of the viewport, the lens cap being bolted through or adhered to the ballistic panel of the shield.
This viewport installation method is effective but results in a shield that is substantially heavier and bulkier than a shield without a viewport. The bolts and the lens cap do not lie flush with the ballistic material panel and exterior skin of the shield, and are individual extra components that must be added to the body of the shield. In addition, the bolts required to secure the viewport to the ballistic material panel are placed through openings that are drilled through the pressed ballistic materials. Making such openings allows for potential points of weakness in overall ballistic integrity because the ballistic panel is not a single, continuous piece.